Posted on 03/21/2008 8:56:41 PM PDT by Siberian-psycho
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had arrested Ilya Zaslavsky, an employee of TNK-BP, and his brother Alexander, on suspicion of industrial espionage.
The arrest on spying charges of an employee with oil major BP's Russian joint venture has nothing to do with Moscow's strained relations with Britain, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
Both men have ties to the British Council, the government's cultural arm.
The arrests, which followed raids on TNK-BP's headquarters and BP's Moscow office, were interpreted by analysts as a signal that the Russian authorities had decided to target the joint venture, which in 2006 had net profits of $6.6 billion.
“This situation is within the jurisdiction of the law enforcement agencies and has no relation whatsoever to the work of the Foreign Ministry,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
“It is not linked to the current condition of Russian-British relations.”
I guess they had to show some result from the BP raid.
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